Support for homebuyers and savers helps deliver strong results for Nationwide

Nationwide’s CEO, Graham Beale, reviews our half-year results and explains why the Society continues to serve an important social purpose.

Building societies play a vital role in bringing competition to the UK high street and giving us much needed choice in how we manage our money. The proof of this can be seen in Nationwide’s latest half-year results:

We lent almost £15 billion in mortgages, a half-year record and over 13% of all UK mortgage lending in that period

We helped over 25,700 people to buy their first home

We provided a safe home for cash ISA savings and accounted for a third of growth in balances

More than a quarter of a million people chose Nationwide to look after their current account

We were at the forefront with the introduction of new technology like Apple Pay and Paym

And whilst the banks were talking about closing outlets, we invested millions in new branches and new ways of helping customers across our branches

Nationwide is owned by its members

Nationwide is owned by its members so we don’t have to chase profits to please shareholders. As a building society we are also keenly aware of our roots in the community, continuing to play the role of being a genuine alternative to the banks and serving a social purpose by providing a safe home for savers and support for homebuyers.

Doing the right thing for our members

Those roots and that tradition also shine through in our people, whether it’s in your local branch or one of our many consultants helping you on the phone and via Twitter. These are values that I and my executive colleagues also share. Doing the right thing for our members and ensuring their money is safe and secure is of the utmost importance.

“We have remained first for customer satisfaction amongst our high street peers.”

This commitment seems to be working with you, our members, because once again we have remained first for customer satisfaction amongst our high street peers1. If things do go awry, Nationwide always strives to resolve problems as quickly as possible and ensure they don’t happen again, which is why we accounted for just 2.1% of all complaints to the Financial Conduct Authority2.

Invest for the future

But in the complex and sometimes stormy world of finance, people don’t just want good products – they need to know that their money is absolutely secure. So whilst recording a 34% increase in the half-year statutory profit to £802 million demonstrates a great performance by Nationwide, it also means we can safely meet our regulatory capital requirements and provide a safe home for our members’ savings and the security of their mortgages. It may seem technical, but I can assure you that having an increased Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 21.9% and an increased leverage ratio of 4.2% makes us one of the safest financial institutions in Britain today. Making a profit also means that we can continue to invest for the future, at a time when the pace of change has never been more dramatic, to ensure Nationwide can provide products and services for future generations of members.

In the meantime we won’t rest on our laurels, and as we push into the second half of this financial year we will ensure that we continue to deliver a fantastic service, great products and the peace of mind and security that the Nationwide Building Society has become famous for.

Finally, as you may already know, earlier this week Nationwide announced Joe Garner, the current CEO of Openreach, as my successor. This is an important appointment for Nationwide as we continue to focus on being a modern mutual which invests in exceptional products and services for its members. I wish Joe and the Society every success for the future.

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Nationwide Building Society is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority under registration number 106078. You can confirm our registration on the FCA's website (This link will open in a new window) (https://www.the-fca.org.uk).